YCLSA Free State Message to the SASCO Lecture - Solidarity with KenyanStudents Movements and People about 147 Students Assasinated delivered by the Deputy Provincial Chairperson, cde Thabang Mokitimi

17 April 2015

Greeting to you all comrades and friends.

We gather here today, exactly 15 days after the horrific attack at the University inGarissa, Kenya, we meet here today to demonstrate and confirm our support to the families of the victims of the assassinated 147 students in the said University.

147 is not just a number and it must never be treated as such, these 147 were brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, they were friends to many. These students were the future leaders of Kenya and Africa, but their bright future were cut short by the terrorist group, Al Shabab.

Comrades, imperialist forces are engaged in what is termed as the “Scramble for Africa” popularly known as invasion, occupation and re-colonisation of Africa by the Western powers solely because of the riches and wealth beneath the African soil. Their intention is to get hold of our natural resources to their own gain leaving Africa dry. We must emphasise that we refuse to be recolonized.

147 is not just a number and it cannot be treated as such. It is inhumane and genocidal and those who purports this acts are not worthy of being called people, they are animals.

The unity of Africa and her people is of paramount importance and it is only through this unity that we fight against such thuggerist tendencies which have reared their ugly heads levelled against Africans by Africans, growing into Black on Black war, through an invisible hand of imperialism.

Comrades, the struggle for the unity of Africans in Africa cannot be waged outside the international struggle against capital and imperialism. We must as a movement, escalate our tempo to make it known worldwide that we are opposed of fascism and all its facets.

Based on this assertions by Nkrumah, we must insist that countries in Africa must stop keeping quiet about horrific political situations in Africa. The youth and students must force down governments to act against genocidal crimes in Africa, act against the abuse, killings and mass rapes of women in our mother continent. We must demand that the business must change, order must be restored and peace must prevail.

Failure to unite and speak in one voice will open us up to forces of darknessmaking it easy for them to fund terrorist formations whose sole mandate is to deal away with those opposed to imperialism. Theirs is to deliver Africa on a silver platter to the Western forces.

They tell us of religious wars but we know for a fact that these religious wars are nothing but a “front”, they know that through religion they can play on the minds of ordinary people. We make this assertion as the YCLSA Free State because we know it can be justified, that almost all the major wars in the world today as based on religions, then on resources.

Before I conclude programme director, we also want to make it known to the public that WE, The Generation of 2015, of Young Communists, stand firmly against Xenophobia. The events of the past few days in which Africans butchered Africans with knifes and pangas, is a demonstration that poverty, unemployment and lack of economic activity can be more dangerous to society in democracies than apartheid could have been to our country. Whilst no amount of reason can justify those barbaric act of Xenophobia, it is justly impossible to disassociate the location of those who perpetuate the act from the means of production. Therefore, we believe that moving rapidly from sloganeering about ‘radical transformation’ to actual implementation of the ideals of the people on the ground is the only solution to the problem.

We cannot keep quiet, that those whose messages are quoted out of context holds the responsibility to lead in the vilification of all Xenophobic attacks taking place in the country. If the injudicious knobkerries and panga-brigades unjustly based on their misunderstanding of King Zwelithini’s statement, the King must not warm up his throne, while there is Black-on-Black violence erupting out there.

We believe, that is the right thing to do.

The YCLSA is in solidarity with the people of Kenya, the families of the deceased students. The type SASCO that recognises the need and urgency of taking forward programmes such as this one, is the SASCO we are willing to defend at all cost, and be proud of.